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When
Jeff Bullock(my fellow Jupiter3 and Fuzzy Warbles cohort) left for
the mountains of North Carolina in August of 2003, he sold me some
of his PC based recording gear. From there I began to record the musical
ideas I had accumulated since 1998 while working on the West side
of Orlando's Orange Blossom Trail (at Rock Lake Elementary School
and Memorial Middle School). Frankly, I never listened to Hip-hop,
Rap, or R & B until I started working with the kids in Orlando.
They inspired me with their rhymes, their slang, their beats, their
influences, and their attitudes. By the Spring of 2003, I had students
coming in from all over Memorial Middle School to join in on impromptu
freestyle jams in my computer lab before and after school hours (kudos
to Avacia Williams and John Brown Lee for some superlative rhymes).
In this spirit, I came up with the songs for my first solo project,
Room In America, which blends Rap and Hip-hop with my Indie-Rock
sensibilities. This hybrid is not exactly intuitive to me, and
the style is considerably different from the music I listen to most.
My next project will probably be quite different from this one. Nonetheless,
I am proud of these recordings as they are expressions of my experiences
living and working in downtown Orlando.
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